104. The City Council is right to be ambitious for Nottingham. All Councils should be ambitious.
105. One sister regional capital had a corporate plan for 2002 - setting out an aspiration for a tram system, an arena for rock concerts, more park and ride, new types of swimming pools, a top quality concert hall, the redevelopment of its shopping centre, a conference centre and a better museum for the city.
106. You’ll recognise some of the challenges as challenges that still face us here. But you’ll also recognise how far ahead of that city we are in the facilities delivered.
107. These public facilities give Nottingham a clearer, stronger profile as a regional capital, a European city and great place to work, learn, shop and have fun.
108. And yet, year on year, we get the demand– an end to flagship projects. Well those demands are wrong.
109. And if the reaction to Square One is anything to go by – we don’t believe that the people who make those demands always mean it.
110. Without the vision of Labour Councillors who’ve led this council, we’d have been left trailing in the wake of other cities.
111. So it’s right to be ambitious. There is still the most enormous need for change in Nottingham.
112. Development is needed to maintain and increase jobs and our standard of living. Huge social problems have to be addressed – problems derived from a tolerance of social injustice and inequality. And environmental problems have to be addressed too – ranging from improving the cleanliness of our air and our streets to facing up to the challenges of climate change.
113. The Council, working in partnership, can be the agent of change.
114. To be effective, we must be ambitious and pick our priorities for action. We must focus on those priorities to maximise change and we must develop ways by which we can determine those priorities and not try to solve everything at once.
115. We must develop the capacity to make the changes, and be able to continuously assess our performance, so as to evaluate changes in our circumstance and manage effectively.
116. We must continue to achieve – and we’ve seen this year for example, the best progress on any Local Transport Plan in the country – traffic levels constant and bus patronage up.
117. We must invest; plan for the future and learn from ourselves and from others.
118. The priorities for change have been expressed in the new strategic plan. And today’s budget is the financial expression of that strategic focus.
119. The strategic plan highlights three main themes – City Development, renewing neighbourhoods - through a focus on improving against neighbourhood floor targets - and tackling Council services that need to improve most – educational attainment, housing services, and housing benefit and debt collection.
120. These themes and priorities for action have been drawn from the Labour Party manifesto.
121. But they were confirmed in discussions with voters. Confirmed via feedback from newly elected and re-elected Councillors in May; and confirmed by feedback from a citizens’ sub-panel held in November. There was particular support for the objectives of the Respect for Nottingham initiatives.
122. Prioritisation is the most difficult of the disciplines - comparing what we want to do with what we currently provide. Deciding what might be provided better or not at all.
123. This year, we are proposing £3.8m of savings. Significantly higher than anything proposed by this unitary authority before.
124. We propose these savings knowing that they are part of an expansion of public services; proposed by an administration confident that public services add value to the quality of life in our society.
125. We know people want to see public money used effectively. We have started the quarterly publication of our performance against standard indicators.
126. Best Value Reviews continue to identify better ways of working. Our programme of review work was agreed at a recent meeting with auditors, inspectors and regulators who appreciated our proposals for change, for services to improve and for services to review.
127. Housing Benefits has shown the value of determination in resolving a problem and the value of imagination and new thinking by bringing in external expertise and capacity. The service has improved from 1 out of 4 to 3 out of 4.
128. Our finance officers, within corporate services and within the various departments have brought a fresh focus to use of resources. The service has improved from 3 out of 4 to 4 out of 4.
129. These improvements, on top of continued improvement in social services, further recognition of the quality of our education department and the best performing Local Transport Plan in the country, meant that the Council’s rating by the CPA mechanism was upgraded to “fair” in December.
130. We are spending public money to better effect. But we want to go further. Hence our Local Public Service Agreements and our Gearing Up Programme.
131. And we want to provide more – hence Respect for Nottingham and the other improvements we’re confirming today.
132. We committed publicly to Respect for Nottingham in September so as to lever in early investment from the One City Partnership – who allocate the Neighbourhood Renewal Funds.
133. The Neighbourhood Renewal Funds were increased again this year. Indeed, overall, Gov't has increased grant again for the City Council over inflation.
134. We in turn have remained committed to matching Govt's new expenditure on schools, youth and community services and social services. Boosting educational attainment is a top priority for us.
135. We can acknowledge that Gov't has reduced their ring-fencing, but perhaps you can say they haven't reduced their expectations.
136. We also need to see more done in housing services. We broadly accept the Best Value Review of Landlord Services and we want to achieve a higher star rating at the next review. The move to more estate management officers to promote better relationships with both tenants and service suppliers needs encouragement. Hence the transfer of £700k to the Housing Revenue Account.
137. We've also changed the Council Tax discounts. Why subsidise empty homes or second homes?
138. This change does raise further challenges for one of our most challenging areas - tax collection and debt recovery. But more staff are being employed on tax collection and we have seen general progress on debt recovery – including the collection of over a million pounds more of outstanding debt this year.
139. There is also good news on capital investment for transport, housing and education.
140. The extra money is welcome, but highly directed. Leisure and other areas could lose out.
141. This is particularly challenging for us given our aspiration to update leisure centre provision. The public's taste in leisure has moved on. We want to enable change so that money used for the less popular swimming baths can be used to better effect. We want to build on the opportunities that New Opportunities Fund is providing. And of course our vision for the city continues to progress with the announcement of the new art gallery.
142. To ensure we have money to support these projects, we are using a £740k increaseto generate £8 million of capacity to borrow to support our work in Leisure, primarily for leisure centres.
143. We also know how people's perception of the Council is determined by the response to phone call. We need to improve, hence the £250k set aside for improved access.
144. Other new spending commitments have been met including the extra £20k for each Area Committee, above and beyond their ability to shape the spending of Neighbourhood Renewal Fund via the new Area plans.
145. So a significant list of extra commitments are set to be confirmed today.
146. But we also have an eye for the future. We know new costs are on their way. Especially on equal pay - where we remain relatively well advanced compared to other local authorities - and on contributions to the Pension Funds.
147. If we are to meet these challenges and maximise our impact on delivering our priorities, we need to develop policy further on leisure centres, procurement, education and social services. A further version of the Medium Term Financial Plan should be established before the next budget cycle round.
148. On information, figures for Medium Term Financial Plan period are published within the papers supporting today’s decisions. And we have provided more information earlier, especially throughout the last two months.
149. The Gov’t helped by announcing initial grant figures earlier this year.
150. They then announced extra amounts first in December – which was unexpected - and again in late January – which was unexpectedly helpful.
151. Our aim is and always was for a prudent, balanced budget. The shape of our extra spending priorities were already determined by the Labour Group in late November. So the extra sums of first, a one-off sum of £1.3m grant and the second of £450k grant in the base, has essentially been used to reduce Council Tax increases.
152. Our balanced budget comes out at 4.55% extra needed for the City Council.
153. We know that this year’s tax covered a levy paid to the Fire Authority, whilst the level we’re setting today does not. 2.53% of a City taxpayer’s payment went to the Fire Authority. So we can acknowledge that the nett change constitutes the 4.55% and the 2.53%; which, when calculated and rounded, represents a 7.3% increase.
154. There are other ways of calculating it, including a Formula Spending Shareanalysis. But even the Gov’t have ended up saying that “it is not possible” to calculate a year by year comparison.
155. On consultation, I’ve already mentioned feedback from elections and a citizens' sub-panel. However, the triennial audit of customer satisfaction, although supplied, is still not actually ready. The survey has been done in a new style designed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, who have then not provided the weighted data that enables a full understanding. And the ODPM have significantly overrun.
156. Judging from letters to the Council and to the press, there has been a relatively low reaction to the proposed Council Tax rate increases.
157. We are not reading too much into this lack of response. It could well be that many people think they can afford the extra tax in these relatively successful economic times – but it may also be that this year more than most, with all the national coverage, the public have decided the level of tax has been set by national circumstances.
158. Whatever the public reaction to our proposals, it’s not at all clear that there has been any public support for Councillor Culley’s call for the City Council to be capped.
159. Those who know something about capping know that this is a process whereby the bills to be issued in April are withdrawn, whilst a new tax is set. This is a very expensive process to administer - perhaps costing £200,000 - and would severely impact upon the rates of collection for tax for a significant period. How irresponsible is that?
160. And is it enough to go to Police Authority meetings to abstain?
161. Especially since, Councillor Culley, as a member of the Council, can today propose an alternative budget to reduce the tax to a level that she thinks is reasonable.
162. Who knows what we might get today? The signs are of small points being raised in Advice & Scrutiny – no sign yet of anything dramatic enough to reach the level Cllr. Culley might think would avoid capping.
163. Perhaps they will match their County colleagues in proposing an increase 4.9% lower than Labour proposed? Perhaps the Lib Dems will join them?
164. And what will both the Tories and the Lib Dems have to say about the level of Council Tax set by the Police Authority?
165. Of course, we know the Tories quite like aspects of tax and spend. Last year, they claimed they would have gone further than us on education spending, saying they’d liked to have seen a real terms increase, implying support for something more than we were doing.
166. However, the new Tory spending announcements may get in the way. The Tories nationally have committed to match Labour on education, health and pensioners.
167. But on education there’s a catch. The proposed passports mean giving £1.5 billionto parents and carers who already pay for independent education. That means £1.5 billion less for the state education system. This could equate to £3/4 million in Nottingham, which either means cuts for our schools or increases in local taxes to make up the difference – something equivalent to a 1% Council Tax increase. Note this – and then remember how hard the Tories complained last year about money for schools merely being used to stand still.
168. Whilst they claim that they’ll protect extra spending for education, hospitals and pensioners, there is no such protection for anything else.
169. That means. Cuts for leisure. Cuts for the youth services. Cuts for public housing. Cuts for social services. Cuts for transport. Cuts for the fire & rescue services. Cuts for the Police.
170. Say it again – less money for the Police than a Labour Government will provide. So much for their calls of 1,000 extra Police in Nottinghamshire.
171. It’s difficult to know what to say to the Independents given their anti-tram question today. Perhaps I’ll keep it for my reply to the debate, if they’re here to hear it.
172. As for the Liberal Democrats, I understand they might still feel disappointed by the level of information supplied. Tricky, cos I know Cllr. Markin actually said at Advice & Scrutiny that he’d had too much and what he wanted was a summary.
173. But I think the Lib Dems do need to face up to this issue of being seen to promise everything as if nothing carried a cost.
174. Last Thursday, in London, the Lib Dems did say they will work to a new financial discipline. One which means not prioritising education. It means a PFI programme for the replacement of gaols. It means some privatisation and sell-offs.
175. We are entitled to hear substantial proposals from the Lib Dems to see if they can match this new style of thinking.
176. The Labour Group – and I emphasise the group – has worked in a united way to make the tough decisions based on clear priorities, set early on.
177. This is a radical budget. Re-using £3.8 million of the existing budget – equivalent to an extra 5.1% in tax - to meet a range of extra costs including wage increases, general inflation, and dramatic increases in the cost of insurance.
178. This means all the extra tax collected is going on providing an extended service.
179. And remember total extra public investment in Nottingham is going up in real terms. Hospitals. Primary Health Care. Sure Start. Regeneration. Neighbourhood Renewal.
180. Much of this has happened because Labour is less wasteful with public money. The real waste of public money in the eighties and nineties was the enormous sums paid out to keep people, who were out of work. How much better it’s been to have people working and paying in, rather than unemployed and taking out.
181. People were sceptical of what a new Labour Government could achieve. They would not have believed that unemployment would be halved. That youth unemployment would be addressed so significantly. That staff-pupil ratios would be improved so dramatically and that cash for schools would be up from under £90m to over £160m. That spending on school buildings would be 20 times the rate it was under the Tories. That we could extend the range of support for pensioners and help the poorest pensioners so dramatically, even some who have a small supplementary pension.
182. Labour’s ability to hold seats like Mapperley and wins seats like Sherwood in a by-election, is because when we can get the time and the attention of voters, we can convey a terrific range of improvements on the doorsteps and through our literature.
183. In the end, these achievements have enabled us to win elections, and despite the frustrations, we can be proud of all we’ve achieved since 1997.
184. A lot done. Including the start of a tram service. We’ve lifted our sights. And as our plans for the future show, we recognise we still have a lot to do. And we intend to do it.
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